§ SIR HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield, Central)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if the attention of His Majesty's Government has been drawn to the tendency to concentrate the manufacture of warlike and other materials in and around London; and whether the Council of Defence will consider the desirability of doing something towards the decentralisation of Government manufacture, in view of the continually increasing difficulty of housing accommodation at reasonable rental and the consequential enhanced difficulty and cost of labour.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI do not think the Council of Defence is the proper body to deal with the important subject referred to. The Government have for some time been considering it, and are framing a Committee who they hope will deal in a useful manner with the problems raised.